Many people exercise. Their reasons for doing so include a desire to lose weight, improve muscle tone, improve cardiovascular health, and generally to become or remain fit and healthy.
Different exercise regimens are appropriate for different individuals, depending on their health and physical condition, the goals they wish to achieve and their time available for exercising. Developing an exercise regimen that is safe for a user and that will help that user reach his specific goals requires considerable expertise. Without access to such expertise, a user may exercise in a manner that is ineffective or, even worse, harmful to the user's heath.
Many people exercise at gyms or fitness centers and health clubs. (Hereinafter, these facilities may be referred to generically by any one of these terms or by the general term “club.”) Often, upon joining a club, persons will consult a personal trainer who will provide instruction on the proper use of exercise equipment and who will recommend a workout or exercise schedule based on the user's age and general health. If the person desires, he can schedule workout sessions with a personal trainer who will monitor his progress, provide suggestions and encouragement for exercising more effectively, and adjust his workout as necessary to help him achieve his goals. However, the use of a personal trainer can be expensive, and most clubs provide only a limited amount of training for new members before they begin to charge extra for personal training services, at an hourly rate, for example. Moreover, personal trainers generally work with multiple individuals and work only certain hours on certain days. Thus, if one wishes to work with a personal trainer, he must schedule his workouts when that personal trainer is available; this may not be easy if the individual exercises at unusual or irregular times. Therefore, many individuals forego the benefits of a personal trainer and attempt to exercise on their own.
Even at well-run clubs, nearly half of all members will stop exercising after six months, and more that forty percent will quit. Full-time, one-on-one training is the best way to retain members; however, for the reasons discussed above, this is not an option for all or even most members. Individuals who do not work with a trainer are more likely to exercise ineffectively, deviate from an effective exercise plan if one was initially developed for them, fail to achieve their workout goals, become frustrated, and eventually, stop visiting a club. This is partly due to the lack of encouragement that a trainer can provide, and partly due to the boredom that may set in if an exercise routine is not varied and the individual ends up doing the same series of exercises repeatedly over the course of weeks or months. Trainers can often recommend different exercises that work a given muscle or muscle group, but many individuals will not readily learn dozens of exercises and the benefits of each without substantial guidance by a professional. Moreover, without a personal trainer tracking a user's attendance, club management may not learn of a drop off in a user's activity quickly enough for corrective action to be taken.
Likewise, it can be difficult for club management to determine the effectiveness of various personal trainers; for example some trainers may be in great demand while the members working with other trainers frequently quit. Thus many individuals needlessly loses the health benefits that could be obtained by exercising regularly, and clubs lose the income that would have been produced by the lost members. It would therefore be desirable to provide a system that could automatically generate varied workouts for individuals, and to provide a system and method for tracking a user's compliance with an exercise program in order to provide timely follow up if a user deviates from the program.